


Jake's Greatest Asset

by Brumeier



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Losers (2010)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Crossover, First Meetings, Gen, Jake Has One Of Those Faces, Minor Injuries, Missions Gone Wrong, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 03:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3234014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a routine mission for Jake Jensen, until he encounters someone no-one is supposed to know even exists - the Winter Soldier. Not surprisingly, things don't go well.</p><p>Pre-CA:WS, post-The Losers</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jake's Greatest Asset

_Madre de di –_ Cougar was cut off mid-expletive, which didn’t do a thing for Jake’s nerves. The sniper was his only backup.

“Cougar? Hey, Cougs! You still with me?” There was nothing but silence through the earpiece. “Well, that can’t be good.”

Jake focused back on the task at hand, which was downloading everything from Stravinski’s computer onto a flash drive. It was supposed to have been an easy in-and-out operation: access the penthouse apartment using the hacked elevator code and get Stravinski’s files while he was on a business lunch. Cougar going radio silent wasn’t part of the plan, and Jake felt the skin on the back of his neck crawling as he tried to will the download to move faster.

“Come on, come on, come on.”

He refused to speculate about what might have happened to Cougar. Surely he was just momentarily incapacitated. Or lost his earpiece. Or there was an electrical malfunction. Jake always thought of his team as indestructible. Hadn’t they all survived Max, and Roque’s betrayal? Hell, Pooch had been shot in each leg and was still fine. There was no way Cougar was down for the count. No way.

Finally the little tone sounded, indicating that the download was complete. But before Jake could pull out the flash drive he was suddenly airborne, yanked backwards out of the desk chair and flying across the room. He hit the wall of windows by the balcony hard enough to crack the glass and slid to the floor, stunned. Pain lanced down the back of his head.

His first thought, when his brain felt slightly less muddled, was that Stravinski had come back early and caught him in the act. But that corporate asshole wouldn’t have been able to toss him so easily. No, the guy looming over him was someone straight out of a Batman comic, and Jake was pretty sure he had a concussion. He straightened his glasses.

“Who the fuck are you supposed to be? Bane?”

The guy was big but not bulky, hair hanging down to his shoulders and the lower half of his face completely covered by a mask. The thing Jake couldn’t look away from, though, was the guy’s left arm. He thought at first there was some kind of crazy metal gauntlet on it, covering the entire arm. Then he realized the arm itself was completely made of metal, with a red star stenciled in on the shoulder like some kind of tattoo.

Jake got a close-up look at the metal hand, marveling at the mechanics of it instead of fighting back like he should’ve been. He was lifted up by his t-shirt and propelled through the window, which hurt like hell. He felt almost as if he were moving in slow motion, shattered glass spraying out on either side of him as he hit the balcony rail with his back – _that_ would leave a nice bruise – and flipped over it. His heart was in his throat as he reached out, managing to get one arm on the rail to stop his downward momentum. Something pulled in his shoulder but Jake just clenched his jaw and swung himself until he could get both arms up. He tried to get some purchase with his feet but the balcony support curved back against side of the building and he couldn’t get a toe hold.

“I could really use a heroic last-minute rescue, Cougar!” he yelled.

The guy with the metal arm, who was quite possibly a cyborg, walked up to the railing and looked down at Jake. He had black smudged all around his eyes, which were a stormy shade of blue. More importantly, he was tucking Jake’s flash drive into one of the pockets of his tac vest.

“You’re not my mission,” the guy said, his voice slightly muffled by the mask.

“Great! Wonderful! So you can totally pull me up.” He was really feeling the strain in his arms and shoulders, down his already sore back.

The guy’s brow furrowed. “Do I know you?”

“Pretty sure I’d remember you, buddy. But I could be wrong. I’m wrong all the time.” Jake was keenly aware of the ten stories of empty space between him and the sidewalk, and he tried to hold himself as still as possible. He’d seen what happened to bodies that fell from a great height and he was terrified of ending up a human pancake on the sidewalk below. “Look, I don’t know what your beef is with Stravinski, but you can have him. Okay? Just be a pal and pull me up. No hard feelings, I swear.”

Two things happened simultaneously. Jake’s earpiece squawked back to life with Cougar yelling his name, and the remainder of the windows shattered as the air filled with gunfire. Jake thought at first it was Cougar, but there was too much, too fast, and by the time he realized it was coming from inside the apartment his new cyborg friend was already on the move.

The guy jumped up on the balcony rail, balancing easily as a cat, and produced a grappling gun from his tac vest. He fired it up at the roof, the thin cable spinning out fast. Even with his grip slipping, Jake was pretty damn impressed. 

“That is incredibly sexy.”

It was a little less so a second later when the cyborg took a hit to the leg, though he didn’t seem to register it at all. He looked down at Jake, head tilted, and then reached down with his metal hand and hauled Jake up.

“Hold on.” 

That was the only warning Jake had before he was wrenched up in the air, metal arm wrapped around him like a vice. He was getting a little tired of not having his feet on the ground, and the quick change in vertical orientation also made his already pounding head swim dizzily.

Cougar was waiting for them on the roof, rifle pointed at the cyborg’s head. It didn’t do him much good, though, because the cyborg threw Jake – again with the throwing! –right at him, and the two of them went down in a heap. By the time they got themselves sorted the man with the metal arm was gone.

“Who was that?” Cougar asked, settling his cowboy hat back on his head. He gave Jake a hand up, and a once-over to assess his injuries.

“You’ve got me swinging,” Jake replied. He held up the flash drive, successfully lifted from the cyborg’s vest during their flight to the roof, and grinned. “Let’s get this back to HQ and see if we can break Stravinski.”

“ _Muy rápido_ ,” Cougar commented as someone started banging on the roof-access door.

Jake hobbled after his teammate, trusting that he’d have an alternate escape route set up. And wondering what to tell Clay about the guy who’d thrown him off a balcony and then saved his life.

*o*o*o*

Jake slept fitfully. Clay had taken one look at him after he and Cougar had returned from Stravinski’s place and made him go to the hospital to get checked out. He’d had to concoct a story about being at a wild party and things getting out of hand. The nurses had looked pretty skeptical, but they ended up keeping him overnight for observation because of the bruising to his back, and the concussion, and the lacerations from the broken glass.

Cougar had stayed with him a while, sitting laconically in the chair by the bed and watching some Spanish-language drama on the TV, and Pooch had dropped off candy bars and girly magazines. Jake really wanted to work with the data he’d stolen but Clay had put the kibosh on that, not while he was in a less-than-secure location. It was understandable but annoying.

It was well past midnight when Jake jerked awake. The room was shadowed but not completely dark thanks to the full moon shining in the window and the light coming from the hall through the half-open door. It took him a few seconds to realize that the window was open, and he knew he hadn’t left it that way. He fumbled on the bedside table for his glasses.

He was almost sorry he did that, because now he could see a figure standing just inside the bathroom door where the shadows were the thickest.

“I think I’m a little old for a visit from the Sandman,” Jake said nervously. The back of the bed was already raised because it was more comfortable sleeping that way, which was good because he didn’t want to have to fend off some crazy person from flat on his back. He slid one hand into the sling he wore, grasping hold of the knife Cougar had slipped him before he’d left. 

The person in the bathroom didn’t move, didn’t even seem to breathe. It was disconcerting, and Jake wondered if the pain meds they had him on were making him see things that weren’t there.

“If I’m gonna have hallucinations, they could at least be sexy ones.” He tried to laugh but it came out sounding a little strangled. “Would I be out of line to ask what you’re wearing?”

There was movement then, just enough for what little light there was to gleam off a shiny metal arm. Jake clutched the knife tighter, heart pounding, and weighed his options. The cyborg was back, which meant he was probably looking for the flash drive. Or else he’d changed his mind about saving Jake’s life and had come to finish the job which, to be honest, wouldn’t be much of a challenge in his current state. Jake could try to bullshit his way out of that, insisting he didn’t have it, or he could ring the nurse’s station and get someone to call security. He was pretty sure both options would end in epic fail, and the second might actually get some innocent civilians hurt.

“To what do I owe the honor of another visit?” Jake asked. “If you’re here to apologize for almost killing me, I accept. Although a muffin basket would’ve been a nice gesture too.”

“You talk too much.” The cyborg stepped out of the bathroom. 

Jake had to fight to keep his mouth from gaping open. The mask was gone, leaving the guy’s face exposed. He looked younger than Jake would’ve expected, his jaw covered in stubble and none of the black around his eyes. 

“You’re not the first person to tell me that.” Jake cast a sidelong glance at the rolling tray near the bed. His cell phone was on it, his team just a speed dial away.

“Do I know you?” The cyborg was giving him that look again, only the confusion was more easily seen without half his face being hidden. Confusion and something else that Jake couldn’t place. Longing? Fear? A mix of the two?

“I have one of those faces. Happens to me all the time. I’ve been told I have a Paul Newman quality.”

By this point the cyborg was right beside the bed, peering intently at Jake with a laser focus in those blue eyes. “You look like…like…I can’t _remember_.”

It was stupid, but even though the cyborg had inflicted all the bodily pain that Jake was currently suffering through he felt bad for the guy. He sounded so desperate. 

“I’m sorry,” Jake said, not sure what he was apologizing for. 

The cyborg leaned down, reached out with his non-metallic hand, and Jake panicked. He brought the knife up but the other guy was quicker. The cyborg pinned Jake to the bed with his metal arm, which pressed against his chest and held the hand with the knife completely immobile.

“Okay. I can see that was a really dumb move. But I think we can both agree that I’m not exactly at top form right now, what with the meds and being thrown through a window.”

The babbling didn’t seem to bother the cyborg. He leaned in close – kissing close, Jake though nervously – and studied Jake’s face. It was disconcerting to say the least, being held under such close scrutiny.

“Not right,” the cyborg said finally. “I don’t know…you’re not right.”

There was a joke to be had there but for once Jake didn’t feel like making it. He wondered if the medication was affecting his moods or his hormones or something, because he felt unexpectedly disappointed at not being what the cyborg was looking for. Although it seemed like the cyborg wasn’t all that sure himself, like he had some kind of mental block or something.

The guy stepped back, twisting the knife out of Jake’s hand as he did so. He whipped the knife over his shoulder hard enough to embed it in the wall.

“So what happens now?” Jake asked, casting another glance at his phone. He didn’t dare reach for it. “Are you gonna be stalking me? Popping up in odd places, maybe occasionally throwing me across the room just for fun?”

“My mission is over.” 

Again, it might’ve been the meds, or the shadows, but Jake thought the cyborg looked almost sorry. And then he was moving to the open window to make his exit.

“Wait!” Jake knew he should be hurrying this guy on his way, but a part of him didn’t want the cyborg to go. “What’s your name?”

“You don’t name a weapon,” the cyborg said tonelessly. Then he was gone.

*o*o*o*

“Oh, come on! None of you have heard of the Winter Soldier? What kind of mercenaries are you, anyway?” Jake was trying for righteous indignation but it was a little difficult from his semi-reclined position on Clay’s couch. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that the flash drive vanished last night? He probably broke in here and snatched it before he came to see me at the hospital.”

“Sounds like a fairy tale to me,” Pooch said dismissively. 

“It doesn’t matter.” Clay paced the living room, clearly agitated. “Stravinski’s dead.”

“Assassinated,” Jake added for clarification. “By the Winter Soldier. I’m telling you, he’s real. Like a phantom that moves in the shadows.”

“You need to share the drugs, _compadre_ ,” Cougar said. 

“It’s not the drugs, man. Don’t you ever go online? There’s whispers. Layers of information. And he’s in there.”

Jake believed. He’d had a close encounter with the world’s most elusive assassin. The cyborg had been terrifying, sure, but also a little sad. Maybe it was just Jake projecting his own intermittent feelings of loneliness – being part of a team was awesome but it wasn’t always enough – but the guy seemed like he was missing something. _Someone_. Even the most hardened soldier was capable of feeling loss.

“Okay, look.” Clay stopped his endless wandering. “I made a backup of the information from the flash drive. We can still follow Stravinski’s paper trail and get the money back to the people he ripped off. If Jake can stop mooning over his new boyfriend.”

Pooch snorted. “Good luck with that!”

Jake grumbled good-naturedly, but he got to work sorting through Stravinski’s electronic files. There was no encryption too complex to keep him out, and he knew it wouldn’t take long to sort through the financials. Another win for the good guys.

Wherever the Winter Soldier was, Jake hoped he found whoever it was he was looking for.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** I don’t care what anyone says, this is all [ Taste_is_Sweet’s](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/pseuds/Taste_is_Sweet) fault. She got me thinking Bucky thoughts, which somehow led to me thinking it would be interesting if Bucky met Jensen (played by our very own Captain America, Chris Evans). This fic is the result. And again, not my fault. ::grins::


End file.
